


Stars On The Ceiling

by swallowthecap



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Sleepovers, also light angst, post-arachnids in the uk, yaz is a slight disaster gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 06:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16634780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowthecap/pseuds/swallowthecap
Summary: “So what exactly do girls do at sleepovers then?” the Doctor asked, sitting down next to Yaz on the dark grey bedspread. “I only sleep once in a blue moon, you know. Maybe I won’t be good at it.”Yaz invites the Doctor round for her first sleepover experience.





	Stars On The Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> More fluff involving sleeping arrangements and gays in pyjamas? For this ship? Groundbreaking. 
> 
> But really, I've been sitting on this for two weeks after I couldn't get the image of Yaz letting Thirteen snoop around her bedroom out of my head. Hopefully the character voices are semi-believable because my brain has to work double hard to think in a Yorkshire accent.

“So sorry I’m early! That whole business with Freud took a lot less time than I thought.”

Yaz had stood out on the balcony and watched as the night grew dark and damp, her ears straining to pick up the gentle whirr of the TARDIS as it flickered out of the black and appeared in front of the block of flats. The rain was lashing down now, droplets landing with hard splats against the concrete walkway. The Doctor stood on the doormat with a beaming smile and tousled hair, coat covered in grey specks from the downpour.

“Nice bloke, mind you,” she continued. “Doesn’t say much so it was mostly just me rambling on, you know? He did ask me to lie down on a sofa in his office but I told him that I’d best be off.”

Yaz gazed back at her with an expression of wonder. They hadn’t seen each other in days but there was no awkward greeting or stumbling over words. She had agreed to follow Graham and Ryan home for a brief rest from the whirlwind of time travel, but instead spent most of her time off daydreaming about the woman who had fallen from the sky and crash landed into her life. The world revealed itself to her through an entirely different lens now that the Doctor had become a constant presence. She watched ordinary people carrying on with their normal lives as she walked the streets of Sheffield, wondering how she could possibly have been so blind to the possibilities of a universe so vast. No more than a day had passed before she had asked the Doctor to come and visit again.

 Yaz glanced down to the Doctor’s hand now, in which the Time Lord gripped a black bin bag. Before she could open her mouth, a sharp voice cut through the air.

“Yasmin Khan! Invite her in and close that bloody door before we all die from hypothermia!”

Yaz flashed the Doctor a sheepish look, heat blooming in her cheeks.

“Sorry, mum!” she yelled back into the flat before ushering the other woman inside. The Doctor gave the soles of her boots a quick wipe and stepped over the threshold, reaching out to press a little squeeze to Yaz’s arm as she brushed past.

“Please don’t tell me that there’s rubbish in that for my dad,” Yaz almost groaned, pointing to the bin bag. “It took us three days to convince him to throw away the pile in the living room and I’m pretty sure that our rug will permanently smell like a landfill.”

“This?” the Doctor asked, shaking the bag. “That’s got all my night things – toothbrush, pyjamas, lavender pillow spray. I could have sworn that I had an old satchel tucked away somewhere in the TARDIS but this will do nicely.”

“Right...”

“Do you think it- oh, hello, Yaz’s mum!”

“Najia.”

“Najia.”

Najia looked on silently from the end of the hallway, her thin frame leaning against the wall casually with arms crossed. She shot her daughter and her guest an inquisitive look, the corners of her mouth pulled by a smug grin. Yaz felt a familiar jolt somewhere deep within her stomach that was not unlike the sensation she felt each time the Doctor pulled the main lever on the TARDIS console.

“I thought we’d be seeing you again, Doctor,” Najia finally commented, eyeing up the blonde woman. “Yaz tells me you’re having a night just for you girls?”

The Doctor whipped her head around to look at Yaz, her eyebrows knitted in confusion. “Are we really?” she asked. “Are sleepovers just for girls?”

“Ignore her,” Yaz told the Doctor, shooting her mother a scowl over her friend’s shoulder. “She’s just being nosy, as per.”

“Is that why you told me not to tell Graham and Ryan then? Is it, like, a secret girl thing?”

Yaz could feel her face blazing with sudden embarrassment. She heard her mother give a satisfied murmur and wanted nothing more than the walls to collapse in around them. Before anyone could say anything further, she grabbed a baffled Doctor by the sleeve and began to tug her down the hallway and off to her bedroom.

“You can keep that particular door open, Yasmin Khan!” she heard her mother call out after them.

 It took everything in her not to scream.

**XXX**

Yaz perched herself on the corner of her twin-sized bed, picking at her cuticles and watching the Doctor’s face intently. The Time Lord, having dumped the bin bag between Yaz’s feet, was surveying her surroundings with curious eyes. She touched the slightly faded rectangular patches outlining the places where posters of boy bands and film stars were once ripped out of magazines and tacked up to calming grey walls. She stuck her head within the tan wooden wardrobe from IKEA, the florescent corner of a police officer’s jacket peeking out from between its double doors. She ran her index finger along a mix of young adult fantasy novels, bestsellers, and thick textbooks dedicated to criminology and UK legal procedures that were crammed into a tiny bookcase. She picked up small trinkets lining its straining shelves before bending down to peer into picture frames featuring photographs of Yaz with her parents, sister, and people that the Doctor had never met. A string of fairy lights around the one square window beside the bed cast a soft yellow glow over the room.

“Sonya’s room is bigger,” Yaz chimed in, breaking their silence. “I literally had to fight her for it when we moved in, but I’m clearly no good at scrapping.”

The Doctor shot her a broad smile, eyes glistening under the string of lights as she stood by the window. “It’s cosy,” she replied, shrugging off her coat and folding it over the radiator. “And smells like your shampoo. I really like it.”

Yaz felt her breath stick in her lungs for a moment, her eyes flicking down to her feet. She would have never considered herself an easily bashful person. It was no problem for her to take charge and help find order amongst chaos. Yet, somehow, the Doctor continued to chip away at her need to be in control and leave her quivering with a simple look. She had never really flirted with anyone before – at least not properly. She would ask herself if that was what their banter and playful affection was below the surface; words that tested the boundaries of their already unusual friendship and left a fluttering feeling inside of her.

“So what exactly do girls do at sleepovers then?” the Doctor asked, sitting down next to Yaz on the dark grey bedspread. “I only sleep once in a blue moon, you know. Maybe I won’t be good at it.”

“Well, usually they paint their nails, watch scary films, and gossip about boys. All while eating a lot of chocolate. Then they.... go to sleep, I suppose.”

A quizzical look flashed across the Doctor’s face, her lips thinning out to form a straight line. The expression reminded Yaz of a picture of a cat she had seen on the internet once. 

“We don’t have to do all that, though,” she assured the other woman. “We can just... talk and stuff...”

“And stuff,” the Doctor repeated, nodding.

“Anything is better than being out there on your own, mooching around the TARDIS.”

The Doctor rose to her feet in a flash, causing Yaz to jump a little. She looked at the bed, down to the carpet, and back at the bemused police officer.

“I’m not going to make you sleep on the floor,” the Time Lord protested, a genuine tone of anguish in her voice.

Yaz scoffed. “Did I even say that?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“I’d have offered you the air mattress but, uh, there was an incident at Christmas with a piece of cheese on a cocktail stick and my dad had to throw the whole thing down the chute.”

“Understandable.” The Doctor nodded, placing her hands on her hips. “They’re an offensive weapon in certain galaxies.”

“We can just sleep together in my bed,” Yaz laughed out nervously, ignoring the strange comment. “It’s no big deal.”

There was a brief pause between them. Panic gripped at Yaz as the seconds ticked by, her mind firing off excuses for her suggestion. Anything, she thought, to make it sound less like a flirty invitation.

“I definitely see why you didn’t ask Graham and Ryan to come along then,” the Doctor finally said.

Yaz gulped. “You do?”

The Doctor looked at her incredulously, gesturing towards the narrow twin-sized mattress.

“We weren’t all going to fit in there, were we?”

**XXX**

“What kind of pyjamas are they then?”

The Doctor stood at the foot of the bed, toothbrush in hand. She had slipped off to the bathroom to change, returning in an oversized pair of blue and white checked boxer shorts and a white t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase ‘FRANKIE SAYS RELAX’ in faded black lettering.

“Oi!” she protested. “This t-shirt was a bold statement in the eighties, I’ll have you know.”

“I’m only teasing.”

Yaz found herself biting at her lip to stifle a giggle, her admission only half true. She did find the pyjamas slightly odd, but the sight in front of her was still enough to make her heart race. While she could have admitted a desire to reach out a hand and brush the pale skin just above the Doctor’s knee with her fingertips, the warmth that spread its way through her chest held innocence within it. The Doctor embodied softness in that moment; her seemingly permanent grin, gentle eyes, and faint scent of earl grey tea mixed with the metallic tang of engine oil left Yaz yearning to pull her closer and wrap herself up in her arms.

“I hope you didn’t just brush your teeth,” she warned the Doctor as she stretched out and let herself rest against her pillows, leaving private thoughts behind. “I was going to make us hot chocolate.”

 The Time Lord waggled her eyebrows up and down, mouth twisting upward in mischief. “Is that part of the sleepover initiation ritual?”

“You’re pulling my leg now.”

A quick hand reached out and wrapped itself around Yaz’s left ankle exposed below her own maroon pyjama bottoms, giving it a brief shake. They chuckled together before the Doctor hopped onto the bed, crawling up to meet Yaz and lying back next to her with a sigh. Hips and thighs brushed.

“Can I ask you something?” the Doctor half whispered, staring up at the ceiling.

“Go on then.”

“When you said- Actually, what are those?!”

Yaz followed the Doctor’s index finger as she thrust it skyward. She was pointing at a cluster of greenish-white stars of different sizes stuck above them, barely noticeable against the pale paintwork.

“You of all people should know stars when you see them!”

“Why are they a funny colour?” the Doctor wondered aloud, screwing up her face until a crease appeared between her eyebrows.

“They glow in the dark, you actual numpty. I think every child in England has probably had those up in their bedroom at some point.”

Reaching out a hand beside her bed, Yaz flicked a switch on the nearest wall socket and the set of fairy lights blinked off. In the dim light of the room, the stars on the ceiling shone a faint milky green above them. The Doctor mumbled her approval before turning to lie on her side and gaze at the young police officer, resting her head on a bent arm. Yaz followed suit, their eyes level and faces close. Both women studied the other for a moment.

“Have you always been interested in the universe then?” the Doctor asked.

Yaz paused to think.

“I suppose so,” she finally answered. “They say every kid is either into space or dinosaurs at some point, and I guess I was a space kid. I did physics at school too.”

“Oh, I love physics,” the Doctor said gleefully. “I was a physics teacher here on Earth once, but that was back in my tenth body.”

No matter how often the Doctor referred to herself as having past lives and bodies, Yaz still found herself startled each time it was mentioned. She knew there was science constantly at work underneath the other woman’s skin; a physiology evolving and adapting to an ever expanding universe in ways she would never be able to fully comprehend. Each time she found herself gazing at her in wonder, she thought of what these past bodies may have looked like and how they could have possibly compared to the beauty of now.

Lying next to her in the dim, she searched the Doctor’s face as if seeing it for the first time. She wanted the sight of her indelibly imprinted onto her memory for fear of it suddenly changing again before her eyes. It was perhaps a selfish need, she thought. She chose to believe that she would ultimately desire her in all ways, whatever her next incarnation would be.

“Yaz?”

The Doctor pulled her back out of her thoughts with a gentle voice. Her eyelids looked droopy and her mouth relaxed, a rare sleepiness beginning to envelop her. 

“Yeah?” Yaz breathed out.

 “When you said that I’m the best person that you’ve ever met... Did you really mean that?”

“’Course I did,” Yaz replied, “I’d never have said it to you if I didn’t mean it.”

“Oh.”

“Is that alright? I mean, was that the wrong thing to say?”

“Never,” the Doctor replied sincerely. “I wanted you to say... something. I wanted you to stay with me, but I suppose I didn’t really know how to ask.”

The muscles in Yaz’s core clenched and tightened, her body overcome with nervous energy and anticipation. The strength of it threatened to burst forth from within her; a shakiness that jiggled in her limbs and upward to her jaw. She rolled over and fixed her stare on one particular star on the ceiling above, begging herself to be calm. She hoped the Doctor wouldn’t notice.

“Yaz?”

“Yeah, Doctor?”

“I feel really sleepy.”

The breath she had been holding left her body in a sigh. She felt as if they had both been standing at the edge of a precipice, one waiting for the other to jump. She knew she could hold on just a little longer.

“Get under the covers, you,” Yaz encouraged, rubbing the Doctor’s shoulder before reaching for the corner of the duvet.

The Doctor mumbled but did as she was told, rolling over and sliding her body between the sheets with a light rustle. Yaz watched her settle as she padded towards the bedroom door, shoulders tense with suppressed frustration.

“Don’t fall asleep yet, alright?” she instructed, smiling down at the other woman as she buried her head into her pillow. “I’m going to bring us that hot chocolate.”

**XXX**

She began to count down from one hundred in her head as the Doctor slept soundly behind her, murmuring quietly in her dreams. A faint tickle of hot breath hit the back of her neck each time the Time Lord exhaled, throwing off her concentration as she tried to make the numbers decrease. The intrusive thoughts that kept pushing their way to the forefront of her mind continued to swirl and swell as another wave of anxiety washed over her. She imagined shuffling herself a fraction backwards, placing her body as close as possible to the Doctor’s without physical intrusion. She wanted them to lie together for as long as possible before the rest of the world, and the rest of time and space, sought them out once more.

Yaz stopped counting at seventy-six, relenting to the buzz within her brain. With a huff, she stuck a hand out to flip her pillow over and bring its cool side next to her face. A quick tap of her phone, lying next to the bed on the carpet, told her that it was just past four o’clock in the morning.

“Stop fussing,” a voice breathed out.

A warm, slightly calloused hand brushed against Yaz’s hip, fingers lightly slipping over skin exposed where her pyjama top had bunched upward. She gave a tiny startled yelp under her breath but backed into the touch instinctively. The body taking up space behind her also moved carefully, inching forward.

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologised in her ear. “Accident.”

“Do it again?”

The request left her mouth before Yaz could really think it through. The instant she began to regret it, the hand appeared at her hip once more. The Doctor’s touch seemed deliberate but cautious.

“Thought you were asleep,” Yaz whispered.

The other woman laughed through her nose. “Resting my eyes.”

“Liar.”

The Doctor began to run her thumb back and forth across Yaz’s hipbone, drawing a content sigh from the police officer.

“Why you not sleeping?” the Time Lord asked, tone concerned.

Yaz hummed. “Thinking too much.”

“About what?”

Her heart began to hammer louder in her ears. She knew it was now. She couldn’t bear it being never.

“You.”

A silence stretched out between them.

“Me?” the Doctor said in puzzled response, sounding more awake than a moment ago.

Yaz rolled over onto her back with an exasperated sigh, forcing the Doctor’s hand away from her hip. She dared to glance over at the other woman, who was gazing at her curiously from behind blonde strands of her fringe. She couldn’t match the Doctor’s stare for long before groaning and throwing her arm over her eyes. The dim light of the room easily disguised the pink in her cheeks, but Yaz chose to pretend that the Time Lord couldn’t see her if she herself couldn’t see at all.

“Oh,” the Doctor murmured, almost to herself. “I think I understand.”

Only the sound of birdsong outside the window and the rustle of the Doctor’s restless legs twitching under the duvet reached Yaz’s ears.

“Yaz?”

Her arm remained over her face.

“Yaz, just...” the Doctor hushed. “Just c’mere to me.”

Fingers wrapped themselves around her wrist, gently encouraging her to come out of hiding. It was all Yaz needed to unravel, rolling herself forward and embracing the Doctor tightly. Burying her face into the Time Lord’s neck, she screwed her eyes shut again. Strong arms were around her instantly, with a hand coming to rest between her shoulder blades. She felt a light kiss being pressed into her dark hair and she squeezed the other woman closer, a surge of affection blooming from deep within her gut.

Yaz dared to lift her head up and look The Doctor in the eye. She was already smiling back at her, but there was a worried expression there that Yaz found difficult to ignore. Her mind was made up in seconds and before she could think twice, she was pulling the Doctor into her again and daring to find her lips with her own. Their kiss was messy and urgent; a little too much teeth and their lips all over the place. Yaz almost pulled away to try again until she felt the Doctor stroking her fingers along her hairline at the back of her neck. The tenderness in the touch left Yaz feeling like she could melt.

When they finally parted, the Doctor giggled. Yaz groaned at the sound of it, letting her forehead fall onto the Time Lord’s shoulder.

“Are you giggling because I’m a crap kisser?” she asked, voice tinged with embarrassment.

“’Course not!” the Doctor reassured. “I was just thinking about how your mouth tastes all minty, like.”

Yaz threw her a look of disbelief. “That’s it?!”

“What! It were nice.”

“Why’d you have to be so weird?!”

The Doctor giggled harder this time, tightening her hold around Yaz’s middle. “You like it when I’m weird.”

“Oh, shut up.”

**XXX**

“Oi, you,” she called out. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”

The Doctor stood out on the balcony, peering down at the TARDIS as it sat on the pavement leading up to the block. Brow furrowed, she looked deep in thought. Yaz watched her from just within the door of the flat, baffled at the Time Lord’s lack of shoes on the concrete. A bitter wind whipped down the walkway, nipping at Yaz’s own bare toes. She wondered if the Doctor could feel its chill on her exposed legs. Rallying some bravery, the police officer stepped out of the door with caution.

“I’ve got some cereal in the kitchen for you,” she said as she approached the Doctor, sticking out a hand to rub along her shoulders. “And croissants. If you don’t fancy a big bowl of danger, that is.”

The Doctor turned her head to beam at her, grabbing for her hand. Yaz reached around and drew the other woman close, wrapping her arms around her until her hands met and came to rest just above the Doctor’s navel. She pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades before resting her right cheek on the same spot. Warmth radiated through her thin t-shirt.

“What if your mum wakes up?” the Doctor asked, more amused than concerned.

“She’d be too excited about something going on between us than anything else. As long as we keep our hands where she can see them, we’ll be fine.”

"So, we are seeing each other then?" 

"We'll talk about that later."

The sky had turned a cloudy grey after the wild weather of the night before, casting a gloom over the edge of Sheffield city centre just visible beyond the hill. The street below was quiet despite the occasional rumble of far off traffic.

“I’m guessing not all sleepovers turn out like this?” the Doctor pondered, her own hands coming to rest on top of Yaz’s.

“Not any I’ve ever been to,” Yaz laughed. “I mean, maybe for some people.”

“Can we have another one?”

“What, like on the TARDIS?”

The Doctor nodded.

“Not sure what Graham and Ryan would be thinking, but I don’t see why not.”

“I’ll make the hot chocolate next time,” the Doctor promised. “That’s if I remember where I keep the mugs.”

Yaz gave the other woman a tighter squeeze, linking their fingers together and tugging at the Doctor’s hands to bring her round to look at her. She reached up to brush a piece of blonde hair back out of the Time Lord’s face, fingers tracing along the silver and gold cuff that adorned the soft shell of her ear as she went.

“It’s going to be different with you,” the Doctor said. “Keeping you with me, I mean.”

Yaz looked perplexed. “Why?”

“’Cause I’ll probably do silly things to try and protect you.”

The Doctor wore the steely expression Yaz had often seen flash across her face when the time for jokes had passed. She had first encountered it as they hatched their plan to corner Tzim-Sha at the top of a crane, and again when they challenged Krasko at the bus depot in 1950s Alabama. Yaz found her ability to flick quickly between unwavering determination and playful silliness so endearing that she often struggled to pinpoint which side of the Doctor was most attractive. It had to be more than luck, she thought, that brought such a marvel into her life.

Their second kiss was slower. Yaz took her time, surprising the Doctor with the sudden but gentle touch of her lips. She let herself lean into it and not overthink; the Doctor’s reactions guiding her and communicating with her like a language she had always been fluent in. The Time Lord’s hands slipped across her back and down to her waist, taking hold of the hem of her t-shirt. She let her lips part for the tip of the Doctor’s tongue and felt herself sigh at the sensation.

Her head was swimming by the time they let each other go. The Doctor sported her familiar beaming smile, rocking back and forth on her heels.

“Right, get back inside before one of the neighbours tells my mum that they saw me necking some random woman for all of Park Hill to see,” Yaz laughed, swatting at the Doctor. “Then I’ll really be in trouble.”


End file.
